1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a bandgap reference circuit and a method of storing the bandgap reference circuit. More specifically, the present invention relates to a low power bandgap reference circuit which can be used for a variety of large scale integrated circuits, and a method of starting the low power bandgap reference circuit.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2008-216512, filed Aug. 26, 2008, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
Bandgap reference circuits have been widely used for a variety of large scale integrated circuits because the bandgap reference circuits generates a reference voltage which is independent of temperature-dependency and of power-voltage-dependency. There have been a number of proposals for a low voltage bandgap reference circuit because the output voltage of the bandgap reference circuits may typically be, but is not limited to, about 1.2V. The output voltage of the bandgap reference circuits may often be similar to the power voltage of low voltage large scale integrated circuits.
A typical bandgap reference circuit is disclosed by H. Banba et al., “A CMOS Bandgap Reference Circuit with Sub-1-V Operation” in IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 34, No. 5, May 1999, pp. 670-673. The bandgap reference circuit is adjusted to generate an output reference voltage in the range of 0.6V to 0.72V which is suitable for the low voltage large scale integrated circuits which uses 1.2V of power voltage.